


i watched the world go to the dark side of the moon (and back)

by amorremanet



Series: you will still haunt me [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Cyberpunk, Alternate Universe - Dark, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Magical Girls, Background Character Death, Commentary, Complicated Relationships, Dark Character, Dysfunctional Family, Emotional Baggage, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/F, Fanmix, Fic Exchange, Hurt No Comfort, Love/Hate, Manipulation, Past Character Death, Pictures, Rebellion, Revolution, Secret Relationship, Social Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-13
Updated: 2014-02-13
Packaged: 2018-01-13 17:54:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1235704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amorremanet/pseuds/amorremanet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The year is 2084 and the revolution will not be civilized — if the revolution happens in the first place. Resistance exists, but it's fractured, with broken alliances and betrayals on all sides, and Allison and Erica are caught in the middle of it all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i watched the world go to the dark side of the moon (and back)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ziusura](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ziusura/gifts).



> This was mixed and written for ziusura as part of the first round of the [Teen Wolf Rarepair Exchange](http://twrarepairexchange.tumblr.com), assembling a combination of their prompts ("something based on the song 'Breezeblocks' by Alt-J," femslash, science fiction AUs, cyberpunk magical girls, love/hate, and poisonous relationships).
> 
> The Utada Hikaru lyrics are in Japanese, but provided in an English translation in the mix's text. I don't speak Japanese and thus don't know how reliable the translation is; I got it from [here](http://www.metrolyrics.com/prisoner-of-love-english-translation-lyrics-hikaru-utada.html).

   

**[[listen on 8tracks](http://8tracks.com/twrarepairexchange/i-watched-the-world-go-to-the-dark-side-of-the-moon-and-back). ]**

The year is 2084 and the revolution will not be civilized — if the revolution happens in the first place.

Amidst the iron grip that the Alpha Pack Corporation has on the people, even under the watchful eyes and constant surveillance of Deucalion and Peter Hale's toxic alliance, there is a resistance brewing. There are people speaking out against the injustices wrought on the people by a corrupt corporatocracy cum oligarchy… and they end up silenced by death, or worse.

There are whispers of the different techniques that the Alpha Pack Corporation have to break people down and turn them on everything that they believe, on everyone they love — rumors seep out into the streets of mind-control programs, of psychoactive drugs and neurological implants that effectively steal control over someone's own body from them, and then there's all the talk of torture and completely destroying people on every level available to them, for "crimes" as small and simple as filling out the wrong box on a voting ballot or making the wrong joke within earshot of one of the Corporation's listening posts.

And sometimes, people just disappear. Taken from their homes in the middle of the night, taken from their workplaces while logging overtime hours, taken into the wrong back alley out of compassion for a stranger, _taken_ — the details change from story to story, but that bottom line is always the same. These people are taken; down in the streets, they're called the Ghosts because that's all that's left of them, memories and ghosts where they used to be. For whatever crime or slight against the Corporation, they're taken and they don't come back.

Except for sometimes when they do, but the jury's out on whether or not that makes anything better. Every so often, one family gets lucky. Every now and again, someone gets to see the missing person they loved, even after abandoning all hope that this might ever come to pass. Their Ghost will come back different, a shadow of themself at best and with missing memories, with their personalities often completely changed, but at least they're still alive. They're not really who they used to be, most of them don't even really remember those people, but it's something that their families can cling to for a sense of hope. There's a possibility that they could recover to some degree, even though no one ever has.

More often though, the people who lose their loved ones in this way don't get these Changelings in return. They have to live out the rest of their lives with a hole where their loved ones used to be, only able to imagine what horrors befell them and praying that they're dead rather than still suffering whatever torments the Corporation is capable of. None of these things are under wraps: the government won't acknowledge it and the Corporation only offers strategically worded non-answers, but it's an open secret that the Corporation is behind these disappearances, behind all the mysterious deaths that plague the country, and behind the systematic way that people are broken down until they can't fight back.

Even so, there are those who don't believe the truth, or else don't dare believe in it. _But that can't be true_ , so many people think. _None of that could possibly be happening, not in this day and age, not on our soil. It can't be true because we're more evolved than that. This isn't the Dark Ages. We're better than that now._ Lulled into apathy through drugs and entertainment, bread and circuses, or being worked until they're dead tired, they pose no threat to their oppressors. Still others know the truth but are scared out of speaking for fear of what might happen: they don't dare try anything because they could lose their families, their friends, their selves; the Corporation has taken everything from so many people already and it wouldn't be too much to expect that they might do it again.

Resistance is alive but it's unwell. It thrives only in that the people who make it up refuse to quit, even when they burn out. Magic has been kept quiet and hidden for centuries only to make a resurgence now, integrated with the technology and cybernetics of the age, and out in the streets, free agent magic-users have started banding together in gangs. They work with each other, trying to clean up the Corporation's agents and keep the people as safe as they possibly can be kept — but change is a slow process. With every person these rebels win to their cause, even just as a quiet supporter or someone working to raise awareness of what they're up against, they lose still more: Peter and Deucalion's agents find their safe havens, they find the places on the Net where the rebels are networking with each other, they find the rebels in moments of weakness or while they're waiting for their magical energies to recharge, and the Corporation strikes hard and fast. Survivors get left behind, but that doesn't mean much.

And anyway, how much large-scale change can they really bring about when they're trying so hard to keep everything together in the first place? When they're trying so hard just to make sure that they can save as many individual people as possible? How can they forget the individual human level of things when it's what they're fighting for in the first place? But on the other hand, how much longer can they choose the individual level over trying to affect real systematic change in the hopes of saving the individuals eventually, even if some of them need to suffer in the short-term? How much longer can they feasibly stand up against a system that won't bend or break, much less fight them?

The revolution isn't dead but it's fractured, with broken alliances and betrayals on all sides, and even the rebels can't agree with each other on anything. Everyone is at cross-purposes and having an identical endgame goal — unseating the Corporation, and ending Peter and Deucalion's reign of terror — only keeps them united temporarily. The major factions on the streets are these:

 **The Emissaries:** Once upon a time, the Emissaries were peace-keepers and self-taught physicians, dedicated to healing the wounds that the Corporation left on the people (inasmuch as they could, at any rate). They used their magic to soothe people's minds and spirits as much as possible, and to fix their bodies after encounters with the Corporation's agents left them injured and incapacitated. This all changed, though, when Deucalion pegged them for an easy mark and started targeting their operatives. Now, the Emissaries are some of the most ruthless of the rebels, killing Corporation agents when they can and performing acts of violent resistance without immediately visible provocation, led by a tightly-knit quartet of women who aren't afraid to get their hands dirty: Julia Baccari/Jennifer Blake (Mistletoe), Rosalind Ballard (Alpha Kali), Marin Morrell (The Secret-Keeper), and Braeden Tandy (Bulletproof).

 **The Family:** The new kids on the block, at least as far as resistance and rebellion are concerned — and they're the least trusted of the rebel groups as well. More than a little bit understandably so, at that: until a year and a half ago, the Argents and their associates weren't even close to being rebels. Well, aside from Allison (Huntress), their wayward daughter who worked behind the family's collective back with other rebels like the Emissaries and the Pack, using their money and their influence to try to do some good in the world. According to the Family's official bylines, they didn't stand with the Corporation either; they were on no one's side at all in these affairs, aside from protecting their own interests. In other words, they supported the Corporation by failing to oppose it.

The Argents only changed their tune when their interests stopped getting protected. When Peter Hale killed his own sister in order to secure the allegiance with Deucalion, he also took out Chris and Gerard Argent, leaving their mutilated corpses on the Argents' property in order to send a message that because they'd never officially chosen a side, they no longer had the Corporation's de facto protection. He used some of his own connections and his own agents to plant evidence on the surviving members of the Family that resulted in them losing everything, or most of it anyway. The Corporation seized their money and their properties; their so-called friends turned on them and shunned them; their influence dwindled away to nothing and they were forced to scrape in order to cobble together some kind of resistance.

Led by Kate and Victoria Argent (Black Aconite and Ironborn), the Family wants to unsettle the system, yes — but their motivation is vengeance, first and foremost, and it's not really any of the injustices or their existence that that the Family objects to, not even a little. They object to the fact that these injustices happened to _them_ More than rebellion in the name of doing what's right, their rebellion is one that ends with them at the top of the heap again. They don't want to tear down the corporation or its corrupt foundations; they want to take out Peter and Deucalion, and put themselves on the throne instead. What's even worse, though, is that they've swayed Allison back into the fold, feeding her half-truths about how the Pack's strategies are incomplete and doomed to failure, using her guilt and her grief over her father's death in order to turn her against her friends and her ideals.

Even worse than that are the whispers of what the Family's up to, how far they're willing to go in order to reclaim their status. There's getting your hands dirty, and then there's purportedly kidnapping Corporation agents' family members in an attempt to make a point, and taking out other rebels in an attempt to corner the market and cow the other rebels into joining their side. Nothing's been proven, but enough unsubstantiated rumors get to be pretty convincing.

and finally, there is **The Pack:** Before her death, the Pack was the group of youthful rebels that Talia Hale brought together in the name of destroying Deucalion from the inside out. This is why he had Peter kill her: he'd cottoned on to the fact that their allegiance was a sham but he had to make sure that Peter would be loyal to him. In order to secure his own power and in order to keep himself free to abuse the system as much as he pleases, Peter was more than happy to oblige. No one matters to him more than himself, not even his own sister.

Now, Talia's eldest child, her daughter Laura (The Tooth), leads the Pack and all of its disparate parts: her baby sister, Cora (The Claw); their brother, Derek (The Ravening, and the only one of Talia's children whom Peter still trusts, believing that he has Derek wrapped around his finger); Laura's second in command, Scott McCall (Hyperborean) and his blood brother from another mother, Stiles Stilinski (Acuity), who are working with Derek to infiltrate Peter and Deucalion's inner circle, and possibly unseat the Corporation from the inside; Lydia Martin (The Banshee), Allison's (sometimes) former best friend and a master chemist, in addition to having a magically amplified supersonic scream; Kira Yukimura (Foxfire), university research librarian by day and insurgent fire-starter at night, with a talent for breaking and entering, though her control over her magical abilities isn't always as strong as it needs to be; another set of blood brothers, Danny Mahealani (Silverpiece, a master hacker who's well practiced in finding people's deepest, darkest secrets and using them to expose the crimes of the elite and turn public opinion against them) and Jackson Whittemore (Serpentine in some communiqués and Niccolò in others, who prefers to keep his nose out of most of the actual hero work, instead working within the social circles of the rich and powerful in an attempt at garnering sympathy for the revolution among people who have more of a chance of changing things); and a trio of wayward youths who Derek convinced Talia to take in, Isaac Lahey (Rabid), Vernon Milton Boyd IV (The Prince), and Erica Reyes (The Howling).

More than a political entity, the Pack are a family in their own right, brought together by dire circumstances and shared commitment to justice and goodness (or enlightened self-interest with shades of caring about the issues in some cases, such as Jackson, Derek, Danny, Isaac, and Stiles), then forged in trial by fire. They don't always agree on tactics or perspectives, but underlying all of their moves, both on a street level and in larger scale acts of resistance, are glimmers of hope and idealism. The optimistic whispers and the bone-deep conviction that human lives are worth saving, the belief that goodness and rightness will eventually prevail over evil and exploitation, the refusal to give up any of these things. How could they give those things up? Hope and idealism and the thought that they might bring these things to other people are all that some of them have left.

It's not as though life's treated any of them all that kindly: Cora and Laura have largely been cut off from their family's money and influence, and Derek only retains access to these things as long as he keeps convincing Peter that he isn't a threat, that nothing's changed between them after Talia's murder, that Derek understands why Peter had to do it ("She was up to her neck in insurrection, she was going to get all of us killed"), and that Derek's still on Peter's side, the way he's nominally been since childhood. Similarly, Jackson's liable to lose his money and influence and adoptive parents should they ever find out what he's up to with the Pack. Scott and his mother, Melissa, lost any of their significant social ties when she divorced his abusive government employee father, and in the work that he, Stiles, and Derek are doing from within the Corporation's walls, Scott is stuck in an unenviable position. Namely: Peter and Deucalion have both taken a special interest in him, seeing some great potential in him and seeing him as a protege, despite (or perhaps because of) Scott's commitment to doing the right thing and believing in hope and love; they want to break him and every step further he takes into their inner circle takes its heavy toll on Scott's psyche.

Stiles can't be tied to any rebel activities publicly for fear of his father losing his position in law enforcement or worse, end up as one of the Ghosts like his mother did when Stiles was younger. Boyd's sister, Alicia, became a Ghost when they were teenagers and his parents have always blamed him for it. Matt Daehler, Isaac's childhood best friend and one of the Corporation's best Exterminator agents, murdered Isaac's older brother, Camden, and their abusive father, leaving Isaac with nothing but a fortune's inheritance (most of which got seized under the completely correct suspicion that Camden had been involved in insurrectionist activity himself), memories he can't outrun, and a metric ton of anger issues. After the Corporation took her father's life, Kira nominally swore off any rebel work in order to appease her mother, and working behind her mother's back like this leaves a bad taste in her mouth. Erica's family is still intact, nominally — except that her biological father sold his soul (metaphorically) to the Corporation after the divorce, one misstep on his part got her younger sister, Addison, taken and turned into one of the Changelings, and it's really starting to hit Erica that there might not be anything the Pack can really do. The Corporation's infection might have gotten too deep into society for them to heal anything, except by burning everything down and wholesale starting over.

They have choices. They have options. They have contacts and inroads and tenuous alliances with other rebel groups. They don't have to resort to something like that. But their hands are tied and they're working in darkness on top of that — they've never been afraid to use violence or get their hands dirty before (though Scott and Laura infinitely prefer _saving_ to hurting where possible), but even violent resistance isn't really making the statements that they want it to make and it's not swaying people to their side quickly enough. Sometimes, all violent resistance does is get people hurt. Change is coming too slowly, and they can't lose sight of the individual lives at stake — but they might not even be helping those individual lives and if they're not, then where does that leave them? What are they fighting for if they're not really helping anyone?

Losing Allison was the worst blow. She'd never officially been in the Pack — she helped them and she worked with them, but Talia hadn't come to fully trust her yet, and by the time Laura was considering that possibility, Kate had gotten too far inside Allison's head and Allison had begun severing ties with all the groups she'd worked with outside of the Family.

This is the situation, this is the world that's in need of saving, and Allison and Erica are caught in the crossfire, with a love that's equally muddied up: toxic for each other and stuck in a poisonous loop of backstabbing and hurt feelings, they can't quit this and they can't just cut each other off, though they wish that they could. No matter what they try, something always brings them back to each other. Allison can't let go of the only sometimes-good thing left in her life, and Erica won't give up hope that Allison can be swayed back to fighting for truth and justice instead of for vengeance and a lust for blood.

**1\. misirlou ["pulp fiction" theme] — 2cellos.**  
 _instrumental._

This song is more of an atmospheric choice than anything else — like opening credits music, it serves to set the emotional tone of things but doesn't reflect any specific element of the situation.

  
**2\. der kommisar — after the fire.**  
 _She was young and her heart was pure, but every night is bright she got… She was singing: "Don't turn around, oh oh. Der Kommissar's in town, oh oh oh. You're in his eye, and you'll know why. The more you live, the faster you will die." Alles klar, Herr Kommissar?_

This song was chosen for Erica, more than anyone else, trying to capture her attitude about the rebellion efforts and her attitude toward life in general.

  
  
**3\. galvanize the empire — chemical brothers vs. john williams.**  
 _Don't hold back! If you think about it too much you might stumble, trip up, fall on your face. Don't hold back! Don't you think it's time you get up, crunch time like a sit up, the monkey pace. Don't hold back! Put apprehension on the back burner, let it sit, don't even get it lit. Don't hold back! Get involved with the jam, don't be a prick… The world... (they're holding back...) the time has come to... to galvanize! … World, the time has come to... push the button! World, my finger is on the button!_

A song for all of the rebels, albeit to different effects. The juxtaposition of the Chemical Brothers' music and lyrics with the Imperial March from Star Wars captures the different facets of the revolutionary efforts: they might have common endgame goals and a shared belief that the world needs to galvanize, but some of them are more nefarious than others.

  
**4\. runs in the family — amanda palmer.**  
 _And me? Well, I'm well. Well, I mean I'm in hell. Well, I still have my health, at least that's what they tell me. If wellness is this, what in hell's name is sickness? But business is business! And business runs in the family. We tend to bruise easily. Bad in the blood, I'm telling you 'cause I just want you to know me…_  
  
 _Mary have mercy. Now, look what I've done. But don't blame me because I can't help where I come from. And running is something that we've always done. Well, and mostly I can't even tell what I'm running from. Run from their pity, from responsibility. Run from the country and run from the city._  
  
 _I can run from the law, I can run from myself, I can run for my life, I can run into debt. I can run from it all, I can run till I'm gone, I can run for the office and run from the 'cause. I can run using every last ounce of energy. I cannot, I cannot, I cannot run from my family: they're hiding inside me, corpses on ice. Come in if you'd like, but just don't tell my family; they'd never forgive me._

Allison's perspective on things, specifically on the family business, on her defection and severing ties from the other rebel groups, and on the betrayal that Erica felt when she left. Allison admits to guilt without apologizing and without considering the possibility that she could change her mind, because she's come around to Kate's beliefs: it's better to get your hands dirty in the short term in the name of longterm success. Unfortunately, Kate isn't nearly as committed to the ideals of helping people, saving people, as Allison thinks that she is.

**5\. tainted love/ghost town — soft cell vs. the specials.**  
 _Once I ran to you. Now, I run from you. This tainted love you've given, I give you all a boy could give you. Take my tears and that's not nearly all, tainted love._  
  
 _This town, is coming like a ghost town. All the clubs have been closed down. Do you remember the good old days before the ghost town? …This town's becoming like a ghost town. Why must the youth fight against themselves? …This town's becoming like a ghost town. Can't go on no more._

This song is another predominantly atmospheric choice: the parts from "Tainted Love" reflect Allison and Erica's muddied up dynamic, the push and pull between wanting each other and needing each other but also hating each other and wanting the other to get out of their lives and stay gone if she won't change her mind, and the parts from "Ghost Town" speak to the larger surrounding dystopia itself. The way that they come together serves to illustrate how Allison and Erica's story is huge to them, but still a microcosm in the larger fabric of hurt and loss.

  
**6\. another sweet dream dies — the eurythmics vs. madonna.**  
 _Sweet dreams are made of these. Who am I to disagree? I travel the world and the seven seas: everybody's lookin' for something. Some of them want to use you. Some of them want to get used by you. Some of them want to abuse you. Some of them want to be abused._  
  
 _I'm gonna break the cycle. I'm gonna shake up the system. I'm gonna destroy my ego. I'm gonna close my body now. I think I'll find another way; there's so much more to know. I guess I'll die another day; it's not my time to go. For every sin, I'll have to pay. …I think I'll find another way: it's not my time to go._

In which Erica's tactics as a fighter and a revolutionary get more desperate, more drastic, more self-destructive: nothing else is working, and there's no other way she knows to cope with the pain of constant failure (with the revolution and with getting through to Allison). If she lives to die another day, then that's a blessing and she'll take it.

     
**7\. smooth criminal — naya rivera & grant gustin.**  
 _So they came to the outway. It was sunday, what a black day. Every time I try to find him, he's leaving no clue left behind him. And he had no way of knowing of the suspect or what to expect. Mouth to mouth resuscitation, sounding heartbeats, intimidations. Annie, are you okay? So, Annie are you okay? Are you okay, Annie? Annie, are you okay? Will you tell us that you're okay? There's a sign in the window that he struck you — a crescendo, Annie. He came into your apartment, he left the bloodstains on the carpet. Then you ran into the bedroom, you were struck down: it was your doom. …You've been hit by, you've been struck by a smooth criminal._

Erica to Allison: trying to reach out to Allison, trying to convince her that her family is corrupt themselves and that her ideals don't line up with theirs… and spectacularly failing to get through to her, once again.

**8\. stupid girl — garbage.**  
 _Don't believe in fear. Don't believe in faith. Don't believe in anything that you can't break. …What drives you on can drive you mad. A million lies to sell yourself is all you ever had. Don't believe in love. Don't believe in hate. Don't believe in anything that you can't waste. …Don't believe in fear. Don't believe in pain. Don't believe in anyone that you can't tame. You stupid girl, you stupid girl. All you had you wasted. All you had you wasted._

Erica to Allison: frustration is to be expected when you're arguing with someone who won't listen, really. Erica isn't even certain how much of this she means and how much of it she's just saying in an attempt to hurt Allison, but she doesn't care. Just as long as Allison can still feel something (just as long as Allison can still understand what mess she's left Erica with).

**9\. days go by — dirty vegas.**  
 _You are still a whisper on my lips, a feeling at my fingertips that's pulling at my skin. You leave me when I'm at my worst, feeling as if I've been cursed, bitter cold within. Days go by and still I think of you, days when I couldn't live my life without you._

Allison and Erica, to each other: in which they can't give each other up, and try to hurt each other because of that desperate clinging and how much they desperately want to be rid of it.

     


**10\. breezeblocks [# remix] — alt-j.**  
 _Do you know where the wild things go? They go along to take your honey, la, la, la. Break down, now sleep. Build up breakfast, now let's eat, my love my love, love, love. She bruises, coughs, she splutters pistol shots. Hold her down with soggy clothes and breezeblocks. She's morphine, queen of my vaccine, my love, my love, love, love, la, la, la._  
  
 _Muscle to muscle and toe to toe, the fear has gripped me but here I go. My heart sinks as I jump up. Your hand grips hand as my eyes shut. She may contain the urge to run away but hold her down with soggy clothes and breezeblocks. Germolene, disinfect the scene, my love, my love, love, love. But please don't go, I love you so, my lovely._  
  
 _Please don't go, please don't go, I love you so, I love you so. Please don't go, please don't go. I love you so, I love you so. Please break my heart, hey. …I'll eat you whole, I love you so, I love you so. Please don't go, I'll eat you whole._

Erica's perspective on Allison: she hates Allison, but she loves Allison; she wants Allison gone, but that thought is too terrifying; and sometimes, when they meet up in secret, it's almost like it used to be, the two of them falling together into still-familiar rhythms and feeling each other's heartbeats, tasting each other, finding a brief reprieve of stillness amidst the tangles and the tumult and the chaos. It never lasts, but nothing really does, anymore.

**11\. comfortably numb — scissor sisters.**  
 _O.K. It's just a little pin prick. There'll be no more aaaaaaaah! But you may feel a little sick. Can you stand up? I do believe it's working, good. That'll keep you going through the show. Come on it's time to go. There is no pain, you are receding, a distant ship smoke on the horizon. You are only coming through in waves. Your lips move but I can't hear what you're saying. When I was a child, I caught a fleeting glimpse out of the corner of my eye. I turned to look but it was gone. I cannot put my finger on it now: the child is grown, the dream is gone, and I have become comfortably numb._

Kate to Allison: in which Kate attempts to assuage Allison's guilty conscience with faux-empathy and faux-sympathy and telling her how much easier it is when she lets herself be numb. Stop feeling anything and it'll be better for you in the end. That one move makes it so you can get the job done.

**12\. house on fire — assemblage 23.**  
 _A history of hollow lives and low ideals. A backlog of wrongdoing we never conceal. I stand up and walk away from the dross towards the doorway of our mutual and harrowing loss. The only way I know to shake myself of this curse is to bring myself to something that is measurably worse._  
  
 _I sought refuge in a house on fire. I took shelter in a wall of flame. I built a prison in my own subconscious. There's nothing else left, nothing else left to blame. Emerging from the wreckage of a life that once was confounded by the damage my own psyche does. I bear the scars of an insufferable will and the tyrannical reign it threatens to instill._  
  
 _Some seek control by grabbing hold of their lives in a futile attempt to help themselves survive. I dig myself into a much deeper hole, running from a fate that I can never control.… I woke up in a column of ash while the world came down in a horrible crash.… Actions betrayed by promises broken. Flames consume intentions best left unspoken._

Erica and Allison to each other, in which they blame each other for the way things always fall apart, refusing to admit to any fault of their own because that might make everything even more painful.

**13\. toxic/faint — britney spears/linkin park.**  
 _I am a little bit of loneliness, a little bit of disregard. Handful of complaints but I can’t help the fact that everyone can see these scars. I am what I want you to want, what I want you to feel, but it's like no matter what I do, I can't convince you, to just believe this is real. So I let go, watching you turn your back like you always do. Face away and pretend that I'm not, but I'll be here 'cause you're all that I got.…_  
  
 _I am a little bit insecure a little unconfident, 'cause you don't understand: I do what I can but sometimes I don't make sense. I am what you never wanna say but I've never had a doubt. It's like no matter what I do, I can't convince you for once just to hear me out. So I let go watching you turn your back like you always do.… With a taste of your lips, I'm on a ride. You're toxic; I'm slippin' under. With a taste of a poison paradise, I'm addicted to you. Don't you know that you're toxic?_

Erica to Allison: the constant push and pull of love and hate takes its toll on Erica — she argues with Allison, who never listens; she tries to kiss and fuck the sense back into Allison through fevered, fumbling encounters at random intervals, but they never get anywhere. Unstoppable force meets immovable object, and Erica might just be the one who gives… but not without raging at Allison before she does so.

**14\. supermassive black hole — muse.**  
 _Oh, baby, don't you know I suffer? Oh baby can you hear me moan? You caught me under false pretenses. How long before you let me go? …I thought I was a fool for no one, but oh, baby, I'm a fool for you. You're the queen of the superficial. How long before you tell the truth? You set my soul alight. You set my soul alight. Glaciers melting in the dead of night and the superstars sucked into the supermassive… You supermassive black hole._

Erica to Allison: in her attempts to try to cut Allison out, and maybe hurt her the way that she's hurt Erica, the claims Erica makes turn into lying to herself. Not only did she never love Allison (at least, not according to the lies she tells herself), but there was never anything good about any of this. Allison only ever lied to her, only ever hurt her. She was just like Kate all along and pretending not to be — saying it leaves a bad taste in Erica's mouth and a hollow feeling in her chest, but maybe she can convince herself that this is Allison's fault too.

**15\. i hate everything about you — three days grace.**  
 _Every time we lie awake after every hit we take, every feeling that I get but I haven't missed you yet. Every roommate kept awake by every sigh and scream we make, all the feelings that I get but I still don't miss you yet. Only when I stop to think about it: I hate everything about you. Why do I love you?_

Allison to Erica: in which Allison attempts to live out Kate's call for numbness. She can't, not completely. Allison feels things too strongly for that — but at the very least, she thinks that she can convince herself that she doesn't love Erica, that she never did and that none of this between them was ever really real. What she neglects in her lies is that, for Allison, hate and love often come out of the same place.

  
**16\. waltz for evita and che — mandy patinkin & patti lupone.**  
 _Tell me before I waltz out of your life, before turning my back on the past: forgive my impertinent behavior, but how long do you think this pantomime can last? Tell me before I ride off in the sunset, there's one thing I never got clear: how can you claim you're our savior when those who oppose you are stepped on, or cut up, or simply disappear?_  
  
 _Tell me before you get onto your bus, before joining the forgotten brigade: how can one person like me, say, alter the time-honored way the game is played? Tell me before you get onto your high horse just what you expect me to do? …There is evil, ever around, fundamental system of government, quite incidental. So what are my chances of honest advances? I'd say low, "Better to win by admitting my sin than to lose with a halo."_  
  
 _Tell me before I seek worthier pastures and thereby restore self-esteem: how can you be so short-sighted to look never further than this week or next week, to have no impossible dream? …There is evil, ever around, fundamental system of government, quite incidental. So go, if you're able to somewhere unstable and stay there, whip up your hate in some tottering state, but not here, dear. Is that clear, dear?_

In which Allison and Erica attempt to finally confront each other about Allison's presumed betrayal, and Allison not only confirms the rumors of the Family's less than honorable activities, but actively defends them. What else can she do? What else does Erica expect her to do? Nothing else is working here. Drastic times call for drastic measures, and maybe Erica's idealism is more of a hindrance than a help — without knowing it, Allison throws Erica's worst fears about the revolution in her face and gets vitriol and insecurity back from Erica.

**17\. prisoner of life — utada hikaru/evanescence.**  
 _With an indifferent face you tell a lie, laughing until you feel sick. "Let's have nothing but fun," you said. Feeling blue over desiring the impossible, everyone is seeking tranquility. You're struggling, but you've had enough. Now you're chasing after a shadow of love.… Fake displays of strength and avarice have become meaningless. I've been in love with you since that day. When I'm free, with time to spare, there's no life in being alone.… If the cruelty of reality tries to tear us apart, we'll be drawn more closely to one another.… I'm just a prisoner of love, just a prisoner of love._

Erica to Allison: in which Erica, in trying to call Allison out, admits to so much more than she wanted. In which they both acknowledge the dangerous way they're drawn to each other and neither of them particularly wants to fight it anymore.

     
**18\. i'm not calling you a liar [dragon age 2 mix] — florence & the machine.**  
 _I'm not calling you a liar, just don't lie to me. I'm not calling you a thief, just don't steal from me. I'm not calling you a ghost, just stop haunting me. And I love you so much, I'm gonna let you kill me. There's a ghost in my lungs and it sighs in my sleep, wraps itself around my tongue as it softly speaks. Then it walks, then it walks with my legs to fall, to fall, to fall at your feet. There but for the grace of God go I and when you kiss me, I am happy enough to die._

Erica to Allison: it's the last thing that Erica wants, and the last thing that she ever expects to do… but given the choice between surrendering herself to the Family and letting Allison take out Boyd and Isaac, Erica chooses the former. And as she lets Allison take her off to one of the Family's safe-houses, Erica can't help wondering if maybe Allison's been right this whole time — maybe this will really be for the best in the end.

   


End file.
